


Ultramarine

by cjmarlowe



Category: Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: Alcoholism, Canon Queer Characters, Coming Out, Friendship, Gen, M/M, OCs - Freeform, Suicide Attempt Aftermath, canonical background homophobia, dealing with the past, life cycle of a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 14:33:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1133787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/pseuds/cjmarlowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Watch scandal might have been averted, but for some people life on Wilby Island is never going to be quite the same again. That's not necessarily a bad thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ultramarine

**Author's Note:**

> This is more about the Duck/Buddy friendship than the Duck/Dan relationship, and even more than both of those it's about Duck finally growing into himself. This may not be the happily ever after you're looking for, but really that really kind of depends on how you look at it.

Buddy French sat on the concrete steps of the station, one hand curled around the square railing, the other dangling a cigarette. He didn't look up, not when the wind blew ash onto his knee, not even when a trash can clanged in the alley next to the station, but he had the pose of a man who was wasn't missing a thing.

Hands stuffed in his pockets, Duck thought up about five different ways to approach the situation, including not approaching it at all. What he settled on, or what his feet settled on while the rest of him was still thinking, was sitting down on the steps next to Buddy, lighting his own cigarette and waiting.

The sun was already low in the sky, and Buddy took one last drag before squishing the butt on top of a half dozen others in a bare patch of dirt on the lawn. "Why do you do it, Duck?"

Now that was the ten thousand dollar question, wasn't it? Duck kept on smoking, watching the sun disappear behind the trees across the road. "A guy doesn't like to be alone all the time," he said finally.

"And the Watch, that’s better?" Buddy looked to the side, head half hung, and suddenly the question wasn't rhetorical.

Duck shrugged and looked out at the trees. Maybe he should have met Buddy's eyes to answer him, but that might've made his resolve to answer go away entirely. "It's better," he said. "It's something."

Buddy nodded slowly and lit another cigarette. "You couldn't have something else?" 

"In Wilby?" said Duck, and let out a chuckle, leaning forward with his forearms resting on his knees. It was a nice night, warm with a cool breeze off the ocean. The sort of night that made him love his home. "I make do."

Buddy grunted, and Duck wondered how much he knew about making do. "I hear you went to visit Dan Jarvis."

"Yeah," said Duck. It was a moment before he realised Buddy was waiting for more than that. "He's doing good, all things considered."

"Gonna be rough for him for a while," mused Buddy. It didn't take any kind of smarts to know that Buddy wasn't talking about his hospital stay. "Wilby's small."

"He won't stay."

"He told you that?"

"Didn't have to," said Duck, eyes fixed on the setting sun. "He's a mainlander. The island isn't in his blood. He doesn’t have to stay, and he won't."

"Suppose he hasn't got much to stay for," said Buddy, with only the barest hint of a question in it. If Duck hadn't known him as well as he did, he wouldn't have caught it at all.

"No," he said, taking a long drag. "Not enough to stay."

It wasn't an easy thing to admit, nor a pleasant thing, but that didn't make it any less true. No matter what might happen between them from now till when Dan inevitably decided he had to go, he didn't think it could ever be enough, now.

"And what about you? Are you going to stay?"

Duck stilled for a moment. "You telling me there's some reason I should go, Buddy?" he asked carefully. 

Buddy didn't answer right away, and Duck got more tense. "Might be easier for you, is all," he said finally, blowing out a stream of smoke into the night.

"I've been away," said Duck. "It's not easier. Wilby's my home."

Away had been _different_ , and Duck had experienced a lot of things he never would have if he'd stayed in Wilby, but easier? Not in the end. It was just a different kind of hard.

"Yeah," said Buddy. "Me too."

Buddy had met Carol off-island. Duck was damn sure he had some pretty mixed feelings about that these days.

"So what happens now, then?"

Duck didn't have an answer for that, but then Buddy didn't seem to expect one, and they sat there together until the sky was completely dark before getting up, almost as one, and heading in their separate directions.

 

*

 

"You gonna reopen the store?" Duck asked, perched on the edge of the hospital bed while Dan stared out the window. Dan didn't answer for a while, long enough that Duck was ready to say something else. "Drove by it today. Looks like the place hasn't been rented yet."

Dan nodded. "Don't know. Guess I should find a place to live, first."

"Motel should give you a good rate," Duck told him. He didn't like to think of Dan living in that motel, but there weren't a lot of other options in Wilby. At least the motel was temporary; getting a hotel room by the month just felt a little bit too sad. "Or you could take your house off the market."

"I don't need a big house," said Dan. Duck had pretty much already known he was going to say that. Hell, Carol French probably already had the thing sold for a tidy profit. "Motel's fine. Maybe bring my own sheets."

"You could do that," agreed Duck with a smile, laying his hand on Dan's cheek for a moment, until Dan's eyes met his. "Or you could borrow something of mine."

"Could do," said Dan, taking a moment before smiling back. "Everything I own's been shipped to Val already. I didn't think I'd be...."

Duck didn't need him to finish. Duck didn't _want_ him to finish. Half-hearted as Dan's attempts had been, they had still been attempts. He'd still been trying to succeed.

"Some sheets would be nice."

"I've got sheets," said Duck, and put a finger to Dan's lips so he wouldn't have to speak anymore, when every word sounded like it hurt. Maybe he thought he knew how things were going to end, but he had to try anyway. "I've got a lot to offer you, Dan."

Dan could only nod his head, and smile beneath Duck's finger.

 

*

 

Duck had been a handyman for more than half his life now, and even though he liked it well enough, there was always that idea that it wasn't really how he meant his life to be. He'd gone off island to make something of himself that he'd never be able to do in a small island town, only to discover that making something of yourself was more about the self than about where that self was, and Duck just never found the right balance between who and where.

Maybe forty-four was too old to start over. But maybe nobody got to tell him when was the right time to do things in his life. He was never going to find out what he could be if he kept fixing other people's porches and hanging other people's banners all his life.

His old paintings, his early high school scrawls and his landscapes and the organic, abstract work he used to do right before he gave it up, were piled in the crawlspace above his garage, or at least that's where he'd last seen them. Duck didn't even really remember when he'd shoved them up there, out of sight. Maybe eighteen years ago, when he'd bought the house and admitted to himself that he was probably always going to live alone. Maybe six years ago when he'd finally quit drinking for good. Maybe on some random weekend in between when he realised his life hadn't gone the way it was supposed to. All he knew was that it had been a good long time since he'd done any art for himself.

It was dusty up there, and "crawlspace" wasn't just a name. He made his way over on his hands and knees, hung the electric light on a hook and folded one leg under himself before he started opening garbage bags and roughly folded boxes, pulling out sketchbooks and canvases, stacked on top of one another with what care he'd been able to manage at the time.

He'd sketched Buddy an awful lot in high school, not that he'd ever let on, not then and not now. Nearly thirty years later he could admit the infatuation a lot more easily than he had at the time. At sixteen it had been Buddy, at seventeen a hockey player named Travis McEwan, at eighteen a mainlander nearly twice his age who'd paved the way for Duck himself to leave the island. 

He'd been better than he'd remembered, his memories of those days tainted by the remembered shame at who he was and the disappointment of never pursuing what he so obviously loved. It was easier to let go of a dream when you convinced yourself that it never could have come true in the first place.

He'd understood colour, light, even human nature on some instinctive level that he hadn't been able to translate into words until he was many, many years older. It had been the only thing he was really good at when he was in school, and the only thing he took with him after he just barely scraped by to graduation.

He didn't know if he still had it in him, but he owed it to himself to try.

Which meant he was going to have to have to plan a little shopping trip, since everything he'd had years ago was long since dried up and mouse-nibbled and dust-ridden.

He wasn't sure whether he thought Dan wouldn't want to go, or maybe Dan would want to go too much, but somehow he figured it would be better if he made this trip alone. Dan was going to be in hospital at least another few days; maybe now was really the right time for Duck to get away.

He didn't feel like this was starting over, but he sure felt like it was something new.

 

*

 

It seemed like the longer he lived in Wilby, the more seldom he made trips to the mainland. Growing up, once he reached an age when that sort of thing mattered, he went every chance he got. Even after coming back from five years away he found himself on the ferry at least once a month, sometimes once a week. These days if he went more than twice a year, it was something. There wasn't much on the mainland he couldn't get in Wilby except for just one thing, and he'd made that choice a long time ago. 

The artists' shop he used to go to—god, he couldn't even remember how many years ago it had been—was now a florist, but all it took was a trip to the yellow pages to find a place across town. Duck really didn't have all that much to spend his money on, so he didn't feel guilty dropping what was a not insignificant amount on a lot of things he never knew he'd have any use for again.

But it turned out this trip was about more than just stocking up on paint and canvas and brushes, even if he hadn't realised it until after he drove off the ferry. After everything that had happened, Duck needed to get away and just breathe, see something other than the same faces he saw day after day. A day in the city—half of which he spent in the park anyway—was enough to help him get some perspective back. You can love a place and still hate the sight of it sometimes.

He caught the last ferry back, making it to the dock minutes before they cut off traffic, and left his truck safe in the hold as he headed up on deck to stand by the railing and watch the lights of his home get closer and closer as they approached.

"Duck?"

It was inevitable Duck knew nearly everyone on the ferry, so it wasn't a surprise that someone spotted him. But he tensed as he turned his head anyway, not really sure what to expect any more when people called his name.

"Buddy, hey," he said when he saw him, letting himself relax just a little. "I didn't see you inside."

"Yeah, well, seemed like you were in a hurry to get out here," said Buddy, leaning against the rail next to him so Duck could go back to what he was doing.

"It's a nice trip," said Duck easily, looking out at the gentle waves. "I always forget that."

"Don't see you out here too often," Buddy agreed with him, pulling his cigarettes out of his pocket and offering Duck one, which he took. "What were you up to today?"

"Oh, you know," said Duck with a shrug. "Just picking up a few things. You?"

"I had court today," said Buddy. "Kept getting bumped back on the docket. I almost had to get a room for the night."

"Wouldn't've been so bad," said Duck, fishing out his lighter and lighting up. "Nice to get a night away, and the town'd have to pay for it, right?"

Buddy nodded as he put the cigarettes away. "Might've been," he conceded. "Me and Carol are going through some things."

"Yeah, I know."

"Probably better I'm there to face it than running away."

"Maybe," said Duck. "Not really running away if it's work."

Buddy's look suggested he knew just how much it really could be, and just how much both of them had sometimes used it as just that.

"It'd just be putting it off," he said finally. And maybe, like Duck, Buddy was just tired of making like there were whole parts of his life that weren't happening.

"She know about Sandra?"

Buddy's grip on the railing grew a little tighter. "Not much to know," he said, after much too long had passed for it to be the unedited truth. "It's not what you think."

"You don't know what I think," said Duck. The lights were growing closer and closer; he almost thought he could make out which buildings they belonged to now. "Careful with that, Buddy."

"It's over," said Buddy, his jaw tight, not meeting Duck's eyes. Duck just nodded, and just for a moment wished it weren't so dark out so he could make out more of the expression on Buddy's face. There was over, and then there was _over_ , and Buddy obviously wasn't quite there yet.

"Someone's going to get hurt."

"Someone already did," said Buddy shortly. Duck nodded his head and just turned away again, taking another long drag. Probably more than one somebody, from the looks of it, but likely not for the same reasons. "I made a mistake."

"Sometimes we need to," said Duck. God knew he'd made enough of his own; he wasn't going to judge.

"Yeah," said Buddy thoughtfully. "Yeah. You know, you should come by for dinner some time."

"I don't think so."

He was as surprised by the invitation as Buddy seemed to be by what Duck thought was a perfectly reasonable response.

"Uh," said Buddy. "Well, all right, I just thought—"

"She stuffed him in a closet, Buddy," said Duck plainly. He'd thought it was just one of those things that had been hanging between them lately without anyone saying it. Maybe it was really that it had never occurred to Buddy just what that _meant_.

Buddy rubbed his eyebrow and stared out at the same lights that Duck had been watching on and off all along. Duck hoped he wasn't going to say something about how she was sorry, or how she knew it was wrong, because he didn't want to hear it. Decent people didn't stuff dying men in closets; he couldn't even believe it needed to be said.

"She goes out of town sometimes," Buddy said finally, a peace offering that Duck might actually be able to accept. "More, lately."

He nodded slowly and finally turned away from the lights. They were going to be docking soon; he needed to get back down to his truck, even if he had a bit of a wait before he'd get off.

"Let me know," he said, then gave Buddy a conciliatory smile. "You learned to cook yet?"

"Little bit," said Buddy, smiling back. "Enough."

 

*

 

Diane, at the nurses' station, didn't like to let Duck in. Three times now she'd come up with an excuse that, while obviously just that, couldn't be proven to not be the truth. He's having tests done. He's resting. The doctor isn't permitting visitors right now. He could see how she looked at him now, and he had to think it was at least partly because at the Co-op Christmas party last year she'd had one too many margaritas and tried to corner him against the buffet.

"It's all right," said Dr. McVayne, catching her at it this time when he emerged from Dan's room as she was trying to put Duck off. "He's free to have visitors during visiting hours."

Duck had no idea what Dr. McVayne thought of him and his visits; they'd never actually spoken, though there was the occasional nod in the hallway. He was from off-island, and Duck never really got sick.

"You can go in now," she said shortly, with no explanation and no apology.

Duck neither asked for nor expected one around this place. 

"Hey," he said as he pushed the half-open door the rest of the way, and pushed it half closed again behind himself.

"Hey," said Dan, every word still sounding painful. Duck suspected they would for a long time. "How was your trip?"

"Good," said Duck, pulling up his chair. "Got what I needed. Managed to catch the last ferry back to the island."

"Cutting it close," said Dan, reaching out for Duck's hand, which he readily gave him. "Didn't you have to start on that project for the town this morning?"

"Could've caught the first one back at dawn," said Duck. "That's been put off anyway. The town's got enough on its plate already. They aren't going to want to talk about park improvements now till after Christmas. Till spring, probably."

"That's the town for you," said Dan.

"Yeah, well, it's better when they have enough to do that they don't have to go looking for things," said Duck. "What'd the doctor say?"

Dan shrugged, carefully, his neck still showing signs of scraping and bruising. "Nothing new," he said. "The other doctor comes tomorrow."

"The other doctor?"

"You know," said Dan. "The other doctor."

"Oh," said Duck, finally figuring out what he was talking about. He wasn't sure how to ask about that, though, and he wasn't sure if Dan knew how to talk about it. "You still want me to come by and visit."

"If you want to," said Dan, which Duck had finally figured out meant yes. He was used to word games and hidden meanings, but this was one he'd struggled with.

"I'll always want to," he said. 

 

*

 

Duck didn't have a lot of spare room, and his garage was too full to even squeeze his truck in there anymore, so he had to rearrange some things in his living room to get his painting stuff back in there. He seemed to remember he used to keep it in his bedroom, but his bedroom was being rearranged already, to make room for Dan. Just in case.

It was easy enough to go out in the garage and build himself a little something to put it all in, no more than a couple hours' work, really. Some shelves, some baskets, a little unit to stick in the corner next to the easel he'd picked up to replace the one he found in irreparable pieces. He didn't remember how that happened, but he could imagine it involved his cowboy boot and a bottle of whiskey.

When he was finished, he wasn't sure if this was a whole new life, or a second try at an old one that, if he hadn't made a few bad choices, he might've had.

It was something different from what he'd woken up to this morning anyway, and waking up this morning had already been something different from the day before. He wondered as he sat down on his couch and opened a can of Coke just how long it would be before things stopped changing so much so fast.

Instead of picking up one of the magazines on his coffee table like normally would have—one Popular Mechanics, one porn—or turning on the television to one of the three channels he actually got, he took a long sip and then set the can down again, reaching for his fresh sketchbook and pencil.

There used to be a copse of trees back behind the school, lost in a fire about ten years back and now the site of a basketball court, where Duck would hide during his lunch hours. He carried a sketchbook just like this one around in his backpack, and pulled it out when no one was looking. He had a sketch of Sandra sitting beneath one of those trees, eating her lunch and looking out at where the other people in their grade were hanging out, looking a little wistful, a little bit like she couldn't quite figure out why she didn't fit in.

She didn't look a whole lot different now, just older and a little more world-weary. Still wistful. 

He started off by sketching her, but ended up doing Emily instead, the way he'd seen her in his truck that night. Even as a teenager, Emily was more comfortable in her own skin than her mother had ever been, and more comfortable than Duck had been until about six years ago. That was a long time to go around angry at the world for not being what you wanted it to be, and angry at yourself for not being what the world wanted.

His hands hadn't forgotten this, even though these days he used his skill more to do up construction sketches than to actually draw anything. It was funny how a person was able to just take something that had once been a big part of his life, stick it in a box and tuck it away in some distant corner of his mind. If this whole ordeal with the Watch and with Dan had never happened, Duck didn't know how much _more_ time would've passed before he decided to open it up again.

Maybe he never would have, and that thought, now that his hand was moving intensely over the paper, refining here, shading there, made him sadder than almost any of the rest of it. Duck would have coped with being outed. Hell, he was doing it now, in bits and pieces. But he's not sure he could have spent the rest of his life never reclaiming this part of what made him who he was.

There were some things he was pretty sure he was giving up, when he chose Wilby. But this wasn't one of them. And maybe there were other things he didn't have to give up after all either.

 

*

 

Buddy came into Sandra's place for coffee and a sandwich one afternoon, and Duck was ready to look the other way, bury his face in his coffee and the sketches in front of him, but Buddy didn't let Sandra take him off into the kitchen or the stockroom, he brought his coffee and sandwich over to Duck's table and pulled out the opposite chair.

"Mind if I join you?"

"Yeah, sure," said Duck, giving him a hesitant smile. "I mean...no. I don't mind."

Buddy grinned his high school grin, one Duck hadn't seen in years, and settled himself into the chair. Buddy wasn't the same man he'd been in high school, there was no mistaking that. In some ways the years hadn't been kind to him. He was softer, a little bit beaten down, a mind as sharp as ever stuck inside the body of a man approaching middle age who'd never done what he always imagined he'd do.

Duck wondered what Buddy saw when he looked at him.

"What's that you're working on?" he asked, gesturing with his cup of coffee at Duck's work. Duck flipped over the top page and stacked the papers, though afterwards he wasn't sure why. "Something secret?"

"No," admitted Duck. "It's nothing. Work."

"You working on the Travers place?" Buddy asked him, turning his head to try to look. "They've been talking about doing their porch for three years now."

"Not that kind of work."

People were looking at them. Duck had always been aware of the way people looked at anyone who was different and had taken pains, not necessarily to hide who he was, but to be unobtrusive. Unnoticed. It felt awkward to have people looking at him the way they were, knowing what they were saying behind their hands, and it was hard not to let a hot flush creep up the back of his neck.

"You don't need to show me," said Buddy, but that didn't stop him from giving the stack of papers a curious stare until Duck finally relented and flipped the top page over again. "You drawing again?"

"Something like that," said Duck, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck and trying to ignore the stares. "You sure you want to be sitting here, Buddy."

Buddy made a show of looking back over his shoulder, smiling at Sandra when she smiled at him, and turning back to Duck again. "I'm sure," he said. "Can I look at the rest of them?"

"Sure, I guess," said Duck, pushing the sketches in his direction. "They're nothing, really. They're just...."

Buddy didn't argue with him, but he did look at each carefully. "You always were good," he said finally. "Never understood why you stopped."

Duck was surprised Buddy'd even been paying enough attention to notice that he had, but then that was Wilby for you. People always knew each other's business, whether they wanted to or not.

"Had other things to do," said Duck finally.

"And now you don't?

"Now I don't," he said. "Nothing more important, anyway. Life's too short for maybes."

"Ain't that the truth," he said as he handed the sketches back. "How's Dan Jarvis?

Duck almost didn't want to answer, not here in Iggy's, but he supposed he was going to have to get used to that now. He'd made his choice, and he had to figure out how to live with it.

"They'll be letting him out soon," he said, without elaborating on his progress. That was private, personal business, and certainly not anyone else's. It wasn't even really Duck's. "He'll make it."

"So are you two...?"

Duck looked from side to side then back at Buddy. "I'm not going to talk about that in here," he said, though he didn't know where _else_ they were going to talk about it. It wasn't like he went to Buddy's place for Sunday dinner, or Buddy came over to his for the game. There was still just a line he wasn't ready to cross, no matter how much he was accepting that his business was now everyone's business.

"All right," said Buddy, backing down easily. "Sure, all right. But he's doing okay, that's good. And you too?

"I'm doing fine, Buddy." 

"Good."

Duck looked down at his drawings, ears sharp for any nearby comments—not that anyone really made a point of keeping their voice down—but nothing stood out. Nothing more than usual, and so Duck took a fortifying breath. "Yeah, I guess we are," he said finally.

Buddy took a sip of his coffee. "That's good too."

 

*

 

Work didn't dry up. Duck'd been a little worried that it would, once the rumours started flying, once he didn't deny any of them, but there were still things to be done and he was still the go-to guy. Yeah, maybe there were a couple of people who stopped calling, but it turned out that when it came to choosing between a queer and a mainlander, most of Wilby would choose the queer.

Hank didn't stick around to chit-chat, just gave Duck a grunt of greeting and took off in his pick-up as Duck got to work on his deck. It didn't matter. They'd never been friends in the first place. Hank'd greeted him the same way when Duck had patched up the wall in his basement a couple of years ago.

It didn't matter what he thought anyway.

Duck used to care a lot about what people thought. He'd tried to be invisible even in high school, and had taken off for the mainland as soon as he could, for a place he thought would think better of someone like him. When he came back to Wilby anyway, well, he just tried to be invisible in a new way. Invent a story about heartbreak—one that wasn't _entirely_ fiction—and work hard at a solitary job, and no one looked at you funny, no one asked questions.

He'd survived that way for over twenty years, always worried about what people were thinking, what people were saying, about him and about people like him.

But it didn't matter. Duck had changed over those twenty, twenty-five years, but not the way people these days thought he had. Time hadn't turned him queer, he'd just gotten more comfortable with it. He'd just figured out how to cope in a way that didn't involve running away or hiding or burying himself in a bottle. He was who he was and, actually, he was a pretty good person. He liked who he turned out to be, underneath it all.

Hank's deck was a damn death trap, had been for years; hell, it was two years ago already that Hank's brother sprained his ankle when his foot broke through the wood at the corner, rotted through from years of rain and snow and beer. Hank'd just put a chair over the spot and went on his way, till now. Better off tearing the whole thing down and starting from scratch, but that wasn't his call to make so Duck pulled things apart and patched some lumber in and tried to make Hank's Frankenstein of a deck look good as new. At least it would hold up for the next couple years; that's all he would promise him.

It wasn't that he didn't believe in patching things up when they were still usable. God knows he'd needed a bit of patching himself. But sometimes you needed to know when to let it go and start over.

Duck's work always had kind of been a metaphor for his life.

 

*

 

There were boxes in the back of Duck's closet that needed going through, if he wanted to make room for someone in his life. Stuff that had once belong to his parents, the few things of theirs he kept after his mother passed away. Stuff he brought back with him to Wilby after living on the mainland for years. Stuff he'd accumulated since then that he didn't want to look at very often but didn't want to throw away either.

Most of it could go up into the crawlspace vacated by Duck's boards and canvases, some of it could be tossed, and a few things could go up top in the one box he was allowing himself for keepsakes. Duck wasn't a sentimental guy, but you didn't want to throw away all of your past. One day it was going to be hard to remember—harder to remember, and not because of booze-induced blackouts—and he wanted something to be able to pull out and look at to give him a hand. Even the bad things, because they were all a part of a life lived.

On top of a porcelain poodle and a pile of paint chips that were going in the trash as soon as Duck could get down to it, he found a stack of letters he'd accumulated over the past decade or so. Duck wasn't much of a correspondent, barely sent emails longer than a sentence let alone wrote letters to anybody, but a few people wrote him anyway.

One of them was even unopened, a tiny tear at the corner like Duck had thought about opening it once, or maybe tearing it in half, but nothing more than that. It had been sitting here in the closet for, what—Duck squinted at the postmark—about eleven years now. Maybe waiting for today.

His name was Tim, and one day back in his booze and eyeliner days Duck had blown him in the men's room of the Gladstone. The letter had been written to Duck's parents' address, and forwarded here with a handwritten note on the envelope when it reached the Wilby post office; Duck even recognized the handwriting.

"How you doing, Tim?" Duck asked aloud as he sat down on the end of his bed, wrinkling the patchwork quilt, and finally tore the fragile envelope open with his thumb. 

Tim was good. At least, eleven years ago he was good. Cleaned up his act before Duck did, six months sober when he wrote and, with any luck, eleven years and six months sober now. Or dead. He couldn't help the possibility from crossing his mind, and it didn't scare him, it didn't even make him sad, not really, just a little resigned to what his life had been once, what the lives of the people around him had been.

Duck couldn't remember what he looked like. He could remember his laugh, the slickness of his unwashed hair and the feel of Tim's cock in his mouth, but he couldn't bring up his face anymore.

Eleven years ago he would have hated this letter. Eleven years ago he would have hated Tim for writing it to him. Eleven years felt a little bit like forever ago, like it happened before his Toronto days which were a lot more vivid than some of the years afterwards. He was a fucked up, mixed up kid back then, trying to find a place in the world, trying to figure out who he was and trying to get people to just let him be that.

It had taken him a long time, but Duck thought maybe he'd finally found what he was looking for all those years ago, in public washrooms and back rooms of parties and sometimes, just sometimes, kissing and holding hands in parks and seeing that maybe there was still something sweet in the middle of it all.

He was never going to feel innocent again, but he could reclaim this small part of it. Back then he always thought he'd have to be in love with someone to be complete, but these days he was finally in a place where his own company made him pretty happy all on its own.

Besides, being with a partner wasn't just about finding someone you were into. It was also about being a person with something to offer someone.

He put the letter back in its envelope and put the envelope in the keepsakes box and finally threw out those damn paint chips that'd just been sitting there gathering dust for god only knew how long. More than eleven years, anyway. And then threw out the porcelain dog, for good measure. Maybe it belonged to his mother once, but she never much liked it either.

Making room wasn't just cleaning up some space, after all; it was making room inside him too.

 

*

 

"I brought you something," said Duck, sitting on the edge of Dan's bed and pulling something out of his jacket.

"Flowers?" said Dan in his still-raspy, still-painful voice. "I'm gonna run out of room."

"Not flowers," said Duck with a sheepish smile, ducking his head. He'd never been a hearts and flowers guy, but there was a romantic inside him and he'd never had much of a chance to come out. "Something else."

The painting was small, wrapped in an old handkerchief because that was what Duck could find, and it seemed like a better use for it than throwing it away too. It was about twenty years old, and Duck could see that in the brushstrokes, in the colours that were a more vibrant palette than he'd use now, but those were things that probably mattered only to him.

He couldn't read Dan's expression well enough to know what he was thinking, but there was a little smile on his face like he was pleased and surprised and that was more than enough for Duck.

"I was in High Park one afternoon," he said. High in High Park, but he didn't need to add that. "It was after a rainstorm and the ground was still muddy in places, and all of the bugs hadn't gone back into hiding yet. I thought it was beautiful."

"It is," said Dan. "You don't talk about your time on the mainland."

"No, I don't," agreed Duck. There would be a time for elaboration, but he didn't think this was it, not at Dan's hospital bedside. "It was a long time ago."

"A lot of things were a long time ago," agreed Dan. And some weren't long ago enough at all yet. "I've never seen any of your paintings before."

"Sure you have."

"Banners and signs," said Dan, shaking his head. "I always figured you must do other stuff."

"I never knew you thought about it," said Duck, maybe more pleased about that than he expected to be.

"Sure I thought about it," said Dan, then cleared his throat and Duck felt bad about making him talk at all. "I thought about a lot of things."

"Yeah, me too," said Duck.

Dan had never been just another guy that he ran into at the Watch. Maybe they hadn't been close before, but then the Watch had never invited closeness. Not that kind of closeness anyway. And talking to somebody outside of that environment, well, you just didn't do that. Not unless the conversation was about the weather, the price of gas, or how the playoffs were going.

But Dan, Dan always caught Duck's eye. A little shy, like him. Quiet but smart; when he said something, it was because he had something to say. And his hands. Duck had a thing about hands; after the eyes, they were the first thing he noticed about a guy. Dan's hands were long, and strong, and Duck wanted to trace them with his fingertips from the first moment he got a good look at them.

He took one of Dan's hands now, gently like Dan was going to jerk it away at any moment, and traced up from Dan's wrist to the knuckle of his thumb before linking their index fingers together and just sitting like that for a little while.

Duck hated that he kept his eyes on the door on and off the whole time, but Dan wouldn't be here all that much longer. Soon enough what they did behind closed doors would be their own business.

 

*

 

Despite what might have been said behind his back around town—and Duck knew there were plenty of things said behind his back, and sometimes to his face—Duck was good with numbers. He'd pretty much have to be, if people didn't want their things put up cockeyed or their signage all squished up at one end. He didn't much _like_ doing the accounting part of being self-employed, but he was certainly capable.

And despite what Mrs. French might say, he could read, too.

It went down better with a cup of coffee in his hand, though, and since he didn't need to be squinting at his computer to fill out a ledger he threw it under his arm and peeled some paint from his thumbnail and headed over to Iggy's to see if he could claim the corner table by the window before a certain vicious gossip perched her behind there.

He wasn't entirely surprised to see Buddy in there, but he was surprised—and disappointed, no sense lying about it—to see him leaning over the counter towards Sandra in an unmistakably flirtatious posture. He couldn't help frowning, and tried to bury his face in his ledger to hide it from them but he didn't think he was fooling anybody.

If they even noticed him, that was.

Buddy came over a few minutes later, fresh cup of coffee in his hand and sitting down across from Duck like it was their ritual.

"It's not what you think."

"I'm not thinking anything," said Duck, and it was mostly true. There were enough people in this town who thought they knew everything about everything.

"We're friends," said Buddy. "Everybody needs friends."

That, at least, was true enough, and Duck knew enough to mind his own business. If it came down to it, he didn't want to have to pick sides, not between Sandra and Buddy, and he didn't want anybody getting any more hurt than they already were.

"More work?"

"It's always something," said Duck, filling in a line from a receipt he fished from his pocket before taking another sip of his coffee. Buddy was welcome, but Duck wasn't going to stop working. "Keeps me busy."

"Better than the alternative, right?"

"A lot better than some," said Duck, and redid the figures when they didn't balance out. Maybe he did need to start doing this all on the computer. Just because he was good with numbers didn't mean letting the computer do it wasn't less of a headache, most of the time.

Buddy hummed his agreement and sipped his own coffee and looked back at Sandra, who was changing the coffee filter.

It was the kind of silence Duck liked to surround himself with. Not the tense silence of waiting for someone to fill it, but the comfortable silence of knowing that nobody needed you to be something you weren't.

Duck's coffee was going cold and his books were up to date before Buddy said anything else.

"That day in the truck, were you going to say something?"

He didn't have to elaborate for Duck to know what he was talking about. That day was pretty firmly set in his mind, and probably always would be.

"I was thinking about it," Duck admitted. Not because he really wanted to, but because at the time he felt like he had to. And maybe, if there was someone he was gonna tell, it was always going to be Buddy. "Did you know it at the time?"

"I wondered."

"And then you got distracted." Duck's eyes flicked over to Sandra again.

"I had a lot going on," said Buddy. "I was putting a lot of pieces together about a lot of things."

"And have you?"

"Getting there," said Buddy. "We never managed to come back around to it."

"Well, in the end it didn't matter," said Duck. "It wouldn't have changed anything."

"Maybe not," said Buddy, and he had the good sense not to say that everything had worked out, because Dan was still in the hospital and rest had yet to be seen, but there was a kernel of truth to it all the same.  
"Or maybe it wasn't about that."

Duck sighed, but he didn't disagree. "I wanted it to make a difference," he said after a moment, "but I think I just wanted to say it, too."

"To me?"

"To someone," said Duck. "Things just took another path."

"Things do that a lot," said Buddy, and finished his coffee without looking at Sandra again.

 

*

 

"We're not good at talking," said Buddy, eating his turkey on rye alongside Duck at the bar at the Loyalist. Buddy was finishing off a beer. Duck had a ginger ale. 

"I don't know," said Duck, brushing crumbs off the corner of his mouth with his sleeve. "We're fine at it. We just don't. We're good at not talking. Not everyone's good at that."

"You ever wish we did?"

"What, you and me?" said Duck. "We talk. You told me about your fishing trip the other day."

"I don't mean fishing trips," said Buddy, pushing the empty bottle to his other side. "Carol's not much for talking either."

"Carol talks a lot," said Duck shortly. "She just doesn't say much."

"Well, that's what I'm saying," said Buddy. "You want to get out of here? I'm out of smokes."

Duck had about two bites of his sandwich left, and finished them before shrugging. "Sure," he said, reaching for his coat. "I don't have anyplace to be but home."

"Anything waiting for you at home?"

It was a leading question, and one that Duck didn't answer till they were out on the sidewalk, with as much privacy as a small town could offer. "Dan's still in the hospital," he said. "He gets out tomorrow. That what you were trying to ask?"

"I told you I wasn't any good at talking," said Buddy. What he'd actually said was _they_ weren't any good at talking, but Duck thought he was plenty good, when he had something to say. "You and me, we've known each other a long time, Duck."

"Since we were kids," said Duck, pulling his own cigarettes out and offering them to Buddy after taking one for himself. "Maybe since we were born. Once an islander, always an islander."

"Still feel like I don't know you very well," said Buddy. "Like I hardly know anything about you."

"Maybe you don't," said Duck agreeably. "Most people see what they want to see. The rest see what they don't."

"Feel like maybe the last twenty years are a lot of lost time," he added a few moments later, letting Duck light his cigarette.

"Things still not going well at home, eh?" said Duck, figuring he knew where this was coming from, and knew where it was going. "It's hard, when everything falls apart, to put things back together again."

"Sometimes I wonder if I ever really knew her," said Buddy. "Makes me wonder if I ever really knew anybody."

"Including yourself?" said Duck. "You wouldn't be the first person to ask that."

"Do any of us, really?" said Buddy.

"Maybe," said Duck. He felt like he knew himself pretty well these days, all things considered. "Takes a while, though."

"They say we don't really get to know who we really are until we're tested."

"Some people are tested earlier than others."

"Yeah," said Buddy, and Duck didn't have to look up to know that Buddy was looking at him with all the questions he had yet to ask.

But today was not the day.

"Carol and I are going over to the mainland this afternoon," he said instead. "She's got a piece of property she wants to look at."

"You're not moving, are you, Buddy?"

"Nah, they're going to bury me on this island," said Buddy. "It's just for the rental income. And Carol knows her real estate."

"She does," agreed Duck. It might be the only kind thing he had to say about her, and it wasn't even that kind, it was just fact. "You need to go?"

"Finish my cigarette first," said Buddy. "Carol quit."

They smoked in silence then, but they were good at that.

"Sometimes I worry that I never tried hard enough," said Buddy as he stubbed his butt into the sandpail. "With Carol, with my life. With you."

"I wouldn't know about that," said Duck, low and avoidant.

"I think sometimes you can want something a lot and still not find it in you to try hard enough."

Duck thought maybe that was true, even though he wished it wasn't.

 

*

 

"You're sure about this?" said Duck as Dan hoisted his bag over his shoulder. He didn't want Dan to say no, but he had to ask. He had to give him that chance.

"You taking back your offer?"

"No," said Duck quickly, and unlocked the door so they could go inside before anyone decided to come over and tell them just what they thought of the whole affair. "Come in."

For the first time he was a little embarrassed it was so small, but it had always been everything he needed. A part of him still hoped it would be what Dan needed too, even if just for a little while.

"You can have the couch if you want, but—"

"I want sheets," said Dan quietly, and said a whole world of things in the silence that accompanied it as he looked around the room. He'd never been inside before, and the only time Duck'd been in Dan's house was after he'd already moved out of it. "We don't need to pretend this is something else, not with just us."

Duck hadn't been pretending, but he felt a flush come up his neck anyway. He was supposed to be the one who had his shit together, but Dan seemed to know more about what they were doing than Duck did.

"What is it, then?"

Dan didn't have an answer for him, but he seemed to know anyway. He set his bag down by the door as Duck shut and locked it, then pressed his hands to Duck's cheeks and kissed him the way they should have days, weeks, ago. Duck wasn't thankful for everything that had happened since that night in the hotel room. He wasn't thankful for Dan's suicide attempt, he wasn't thankful for being outed to the town. But about five seconds into the kiss he had to admit that it was ten times the first kiss they would've had back then.

He hadn't been kissed breathless in a long time, not rushed and clumsy but slow and thorough and completely unabashed. The door was closed, the curtains were drawn, and it was nobody's business but their own.

"It's this," said Dan, and kissed him again.

Duck decided they could figure out what "this" was along the way.

 

*

 

Margie Bushnell had been wanting bookcases in her front room for just about as long as Duck could remember, but it wasn't until her divorce was finalized, fourteen months after her husband Frank moved to Fredericton, that she finally gave Duck a call to see about getting them done. Duck wasn't a carpenter, he didn't usually do that kind of fancy work, but Margie didn't want anything fancy, she just wanted something plain and sturdy that she could fill with all the books she'd been keeping in her basement for years too long and that, that Duck could do.

"You're looking good," she said as he started measuring out the walls, moving her furniture around where he needed to. "You've got a glow."

"What, like I'm knocked up?" said Duck, and gave her a sly smile. "I hate to break it to you, but it's pretty unlikely."

"Not that kind of a glow, young man," she said, as if Duck was thirty years younger than her instead of barely ten. "You look happy."

"Didn't I always?" said Duck, trying to figure out how he was going to work around that oddly placed window. Maybe he needed to ask if she was planning to change that before he had to rip out all his work again when she decided to in the future.

"I thought you'd be down," she said. "I heard about...what happened."

"Yeah, I guess you did," said Duck, his face falling. "Guess most people did."

"Disgraceful, the way they tried to shame everyone," said Margie. "And Frank would've been right there with them if he'd stuck around. Good riddance."

Good riddance indeed. "I guess maybe I am happier," said Duck after a moment. He wasn't one for small talk, but there was a lot to be said for a receptive audience. "Been hanging over our heads for a long time. Too long."

"And poor Mr. Jarvis. Is he going to pull through?"

"He's...yeah," said Duck, and there were some things that didn't need to be shared, not while he was on the job. "He's doing good. They got to him in time."

"I should send flowers," she said. "Or do you think I should send something else?"

"I don't know what people send these days," said Duck. "I think he'd like to know someone's thinking about him, though."

"I'll do that then," said Margie, just as the phone trilled from the kitchen, one of those old-fashioned rings that Duck hadn't heard in years. "Oh, I've got to get that, just tell me if you need anything."

"I'm good," said Duck, hanging his tape measure from his belt and squatting down to check the moldings. "Don't worry about me."

 

*

 

Duck saw Carol French in the Bargain Giant. She was buying some sort of fancy pasta, the name of which Duck didn't even think he could pronounce; he was picking up some cheese and crackers and a two-litre bottle of Coke. She almost smiled at him, until something in his face must have told her to walk on.

Carol French was not forgiven. Duck might never say another word about it, but he wasn't sure she ever would be.

 

*

 

"It was an accident," said Dan a few nights after moving in, half a cold beer in his hands and staring at the television without really watching it. Duck could tell from the way his focus was fixed, his eyes unmoving.

"It's okay," Duck said. Okay that Dan didn't have to talk about it, not okay that it happened. But that was still not his business, that was Dan's to work out.

"No, listen," said Dan, "because I want you to know. I was getting down. I was. I was getting down but that damn chair...."

He didn't have to finish the sentence for Duck to know what he was saying. He didn't think it mattered, though. It _mattered_ , it mattered that Dan maybe found reasons not to go through with it, that he found the strength to fight through, but it mattered more that he found himself there in the first place.

Duck had seen the chair. He'd seen it broken. But it wouldn't have broken if Dan hadn't been up on it in the first place.

"Should I just listen?" he said finally. "I can just listen."

"I don't know," said Dan. "I just know that I want you to know. We can't have this hanging over our heads. _I_ can't have this hanging over my head. I want you to know that I heard you. I want you to know that _I_ listened, even if it took me a while."

"I didn't say much," said Duck.

"You said what I needed to hear," said Dan. "Maybe you wanted to say more."

"I did," said Duck, "but you weren't...it wasn't the right time. I think I knew it wasn't the right time all along, but I had to give it a shot."

"Maybe you knew," said Dan. "Maybe deep down you knew."

"Didn't take much to see you were depressed," said Duck. As for the rest...well, if he'd known all that, he wouldn't've let Dan out of his sight, and that was the truth. "I just wanted you to know you still had options. If you wanted to give them a shot. Maybe they weren't the options you were looking for."

"That's the thing I needed you to know," said Dan, rolling the beer between his hands. The label was getting damp enough to peel away at the corners. "I never wanted you to think that you weren't enough."

Duck had questions, questions that were almost physically pushing to get out, but he was well versed in keeping things inside. He had decades of experience. One question, though, one question he let slip through.

"Did you stop for me?" he said. "Or did you stop for you?"

"My shrink asked me the same question," said Dan with a wry smile, picking at the label with his thumbnail and watching it shred. "I stopped because maybe everything had gone to hell, but the sun was still going to rise tomorrow and maybe there were still things that could make me happy in this world, and maybe there were people who still cared about me."

"I'm not the only one," said Duck.

"You were the only one that night," said Dan, "but it was enough."

Not quite enough, Duck wanted to say, but that one was easier to tamp back down. Dan was here and breathing, in his home and in his bed and in his _life_ and so in the end it was enough. Barely, but enough.

"You want me to turn that off and put some music on?" he said finally.

Dan looked up at him and smiled. "Yeah, that'd be nice," he said.

 

*

 

What Buddy and Sandra called friendship, Duck would call...well, he didn't know what to call it because he'd never had anything like it. Buddy wasn't sleeping with her, not anymore, Duck was pretty sure of that. And not because he could see it in how Buddy acted, but because he could see it in how Sandra did. It made him smile, to see her wearing that kind of self-respect.

But what they had wasn't entirely innocent either. They had a history now, and the way Duck saw it maybe they had a future, but speculating about that made him feel no better than the town gossips so he just watched them. He sipped his coffee and read his newspaper and thought maybe he needed to see about picking up a pair of reading glasses at the drugstore because the print in the little box of scores in the corner seemed to get smaller and smaller every year.

Dan might have been out of the hospital now but he still had doctors to see and there were some things he needed to do without Duck in tow. Duck didn't ask to go and Dan didn't suggest it, just said when he was going and when he was figuring on being back and Duck had things to do anyway.

Well, no, he didn't. He went by Mrs. MacPherson's place to fix her sink because she lived two doors down and was pushing ninety and Duck just did things like that for her. But he had nothing else on the agenda for today other than taking a coffee at Iggy's and reading the paper and people watching.

Or being watched, as the case might be. Maybe the only surprising thing about that was that so far most people had kept it to just looks. Maybe he was actually getting used to it.

A just-too-loud "the queer over there" proved that one wrong, though Duck had heard a lot worse.

Sandra laughed and Buddy broke off a piece of his donut to give her, and it was them that Duck was watching. He'd be surprised if he was the only one, eyes on him notwithstanding. But they were both smiling like he didn't see either of them smile all the time, and there was something to be said for that.

For Buddy's sake, he didn't want to think that he and Carol weren't going to work out. No matter what he thought of Carol, love was a lot more complicated than that and their marriage was none of his business. But watching Buddy and Sandra together, he just didn't know how it _could_.

"Top you up?" said Emily, and Duck distractedly pushed his mug in her direction, averting his eyes from her mother without looking guilty about it.

"I got nowhere else to be," he said, leaning back in his chair.

Emily smiled at him. "No damsels in distress today?" she said. "Or...what's the guy version of damsel?"

If it had been anyone but Emily it would have gotten awkward fast, but with her Duck could just shake his head and give her a chagrined smile. "Left my cape at home," he said.

"That's okay," she said, lingering with the coffeepot in her hand. "Even superheroes get a day off sometimes. Maybe today someone can rescue you."

"I'm pretty good at rescuing myself," said Duck. "Took me a while to figure out how, but I think I've got the hang of it now."

"Yeah, sure," said Emily, "but isn't it better with a sidekick?"

"I'm happy any time I've got someone to watch my back."

"You got it, mister," said Emily, and winked at him and went on to the next table. 

When he looked over again, Sandra had gone back to work and Buddy was putting his coat on. Duck nodded at him, but stayed where he was. Stood his ground, maybe. After all, someone had his back.

 

*

 

When Dan went to deal with the last of the paperwork with Carol French, Duck went with him and he didn't care what kind of statement that made. He didn't want to see Carol, but even more than that he wasn't going to let Dan be alone with her. Duck was an easygoing guy these days, most of the time, but he hadn't always been and sometimes he let that show.

 

*

 

"I'm a free man," said Dan, and laced his fingers behind his head and put his sock feet up on Duck's coffee table.

"You always were," said Duck, sitting down next to him with just a couple of inches in between.

"Maybe," said Dan, and crossed his legs at the ankle, bouncing his toes to Steve Earl. "But you know what I mean."

Duck did know what he meant. The house was Dan's last physical tie to this place, if not the last thing hanging over his head. There were papers yet to come from Val, and neither of them entirely forgot that.

"We should do something to celebrate," he said. "Do you want to go out?"

"How about we just stay in?" said Dan, like he always did. "Lots of ways to celebrate inside."

"There's a bottle of wine in the cupboard. I bought it for you."

"Duck, we don't have to—"

"No, it's all right," he said. "I don't mind. Unless you feel weird about drinking alone."

"Well, I guess one toast won't hurt," he said. "But you're going to have to drink your Coke out of a wine glass."

"What, you think I own wine glasses?" said Duck, but he did of course. Nice cut glass ones inherited from his mother that spent most of their time gathering dust on the top shelf. The wine was a small bottle, and cheap, but Duck knew his cheap wines better than his expensive ones.

"To freedom," said Dan, raising his glass to Duck's as he sat back down

"To the rest of your life," said Duck. He'd certainly drink to that.

"If I brush my teeth after drinking the wine, can we do another kind of celebrating after this?"

Duck laughed and knocked his knee against Dan's and what a revelation this was, doing this in his own home again. He hadn't had that in a long time, and never like this. Never so sober, never so serious, never so _friendly_.

"Just try and stop me," he said.

"If you _really_ liked me, though, you'd fix the transmission on my car."

"Do I look like a mechanic?" said Duck, but he would, of course. He'd done it before, could take care of just about anything himself if he set his mind to it. "You want a ride out to the hospital tomorrow?"

"Yeah, that'd be good," said Dan. "Not too many more appointments now and I'll be free of that too."

"Yeah?" said Duck. "Well, I guess that's just one more thing to celebrate."

 

*

 

Buddy's boat was a well-worn but well-kept affair called the Jenny Anne, which he'd never explained and Duck had never asked about. He used to wonder what Carol thought about that, but now he just didn't care anymore.

"I brought sandwiches," he said as he got into the boat, swaying with it for a moment as he got his sea legs. It didn't take him long; he was an islander after all. "Just bologna. It was all I had."

"Oh ye of little faith," said Buddy. "You don't think we're going to be frying up fish when we get back to shore."

"I think we might get hungry long before we get back," said Duck. 

"I brought beer," said Buddy, "but I promise not to break it out till after lunch."

"Yeah, maybe try to catch some fish first or those bologna sandwiches are all we're going to have," said Duck, sitting down so Buddy could head out onto the water, motor on low and moving at something equivalent to a saunter. Neither one of them was in any hurry to get anywhere, not on a sunny Sunday on the water.

Buddy knew the best fishing holes, passed down from his father which were passed down from his grandfather and maybe even one more generation back, from the founding of the island. Duck's family had never been much for fishing, except for a couple of uncles who moved up to St. John's and worked the boats for as long as there _was_ work. But that was a whole different thing.

They settled in nestled up near one of the outlying islands, privately owned and uninhabited, and dropped their lines just about as soon as they could. It was just a tiny speck of land, not big enough to develop, too wild for a picnic, but the fish sure liked it, and Buddy had one in the boat before Duck had even got a nibble.

Just like every other time they went fishing.

"So how are things with Dan?"

If they couldn't talk about this out on a boat, there was nowhere they could talk about it.

"He's doing good," said Duck. "Can hardly tell anything happened anymore, to look at him."

"No, I mean how are things with Dan?"

"Are you really asking me that, Buddy?" said Duck after a stuttering silence. "Do you really want to know?"

"Of course I want to know," said Buddy. "It's a friendly question. I'd ask anyone."

He said it like he thought of Duck and Dan like any of his other friends, but Duck knew they weren't there yet. Maybe Buddy wanted to know, but Duck though it was more likely he _wanted_ to want to know. Fake it till you make it. 

Duck reeled in his line and fixed a button on his coat and said, "Things are good. Takes a little getting used to, but we're good."

"Where is he today?"

"He's on the mainland for the weekend," said Duck. "Had some business to take care of."

"Without you?"

"I offered," said Duck, "but sometimes a guy needs his space. He's been through a lot."

"Yeah, that's the truth," said Buddy. "So've you."

"Me?" said Duck, and shrugged and tried to brush it off. "I've been through worse."

"In Wilby?"

"Haven't always lived in Wilby," said Duck, but actually yes, he'd been through worse in Wilby. On a personal, private level, not anything Buddy or anyone else would've seen.

"Right," said Buddy. "Maybe someday you'll tell me about that."

"Yeah, maybe someday," said Duck. Maybe someday he'd even want to talk about it. About the dive on Parliament and the punk band he played in for about five seconds, about Tim and Pierre and Big Ronny, about getting the shit kicked out of him for five hundred bucks owed and about that crazy party under the overpass and about a hundred other things that were many miles and many years away from Wilby, and from the man he was now.

"Oof, got another one," said Buddy then, and Duck braced the boat while he reeled it in, and no more was said about Duck's relationship with Dan, or anyone's relationship with anyone.

But as much as it had felt like an awkward moment, Duck was glad he asked.

 

*

 

The world kept on turning outside of them, and despite the scandal at the Watch (which despite the ultimate lack of an exposé was what the raid was still called), and despite the golf course scandal that left them with a civic election in the near future, Wilby Days went on as planned, if not quite as scheduled.

It might've been exactly what the town needed, something festive, something bright, something that got everyone out of their houses and into the streets. 

"Are you sure about this?" said Dan as Duck parked his truck by the Catholic church, the first place where he saw an empty spot that was less than a two-block walk to the festivities.

"I'm pretty sure God isn't particular about who parks here."

"You know what I mean."

"I know what you mean," said Duck, and leaned in and kissed him in the cab of the truck, where they still could. "Wilby Days is for everyone."

And if they were going to be what they were, then Wilby was a small town. They couldn't stay in Duck's living room forever. Duck didn't want that anymore, not all the time, not every day. He wanted it less and less all the time.

It wasn't like Duck and Dan walked through Wilby Days hand-in-hand, got their picture taken together or danced in the street when the music started up. But they went. He was sure everyone expected them to stay away but they went, and they went together, and they apologised to nobody.

"You want to ride the Ferris wheel," said Duck, leaning against a stop sign as he watched it go round and round.

"Thing's so small I could probably touch the ground from the top," he said, arms crossed over his body like he was chilly in the summer air.

"You want my jacket?"

"No, I'm good," he said. "Bet I can dunk the mayor, though."

"I'd like to see that," said Duck, and grinned at him. "There's a line."

"There's a hell of a line," said Dan. "I'd better go get in it."

"How about you get in that line and I'll go get us something to eat while you wait."

"Now there's a plan," said Dan, and moved forward just slightly like he was going to kiss Duck before he caught himself and moved back again. "Maybe I'll dunk him twice, once for each of us."

"I'd pay good money to see that," said Duck, and Dan actually touched his arm before heading off to join the queue which Duck was calling a win.

There was a kiosk at the corner selling hamburgers which were about as fancy as Duck planned to get, even though there were a few other more daring options available. Daring for Wilby, anyway, which wasn't really saying all that much.

Sandra was getting fish and chips for her and Emily about twenty feet away, and Duck gave them both a friendly wave as he put half a bottle of ketchup on Dan's burger. He got a pair of friendly waves back, right before Emily spilled mustard on her mother's blouse.

He didn't stick around long enough to find out whether it was intentional or accidental or somewhere in between.

The line was moving pretty quickly, without a splash in sight, and Duck found a convenient picnic table to perch himself on, setting both foil-wrapped hamburgers aside and sitting on top of the table with his knees up, a cup of coffee between his hands, and as he watched Dan he was smiling like he hadn't remembered smiling in a long time. He wished this could last forever.

Five minutes later, he was anything but surprised when the throw from Dan—who would probably be killer at baseball, good to know—sent Brent Fisher into the water. He wasn't even disappointed when he took the win and didn't even try for a second dunking. After all, there was a long line behind him, too.

"Here," said Duck, holding up the bag in front of him when Dan came back, to forestall that awkward moment when they didn't know quite how to greet each other. But Dan didn't hesitate to sit right up on that table next to him, thigh pressed to thigh, and even feed Duck a couple of french fries when his hands were covered with ketchup and he couldn't find the pile of napkins.

"I'm about done," said Dan after they'd eaten, after they'd watched half the town walk by, and let themselves be seen just as thoroughly. "Home?"

"Sure," said Duck, shoving the rediscovered wad of napkins into the ketchup-smeared bag and finding what might've been the only not-yet-overflowing bin to toss it in.

This time when he offered Dan his jacket, Dan took it.

"Not sure I need it so bad, though," he said. "We're going to be getting plenty warm soon enough."

"Yeah?" said Duck, and wondered if there were any cops on the road to ticket him if he went more than a little bit over the speed limit. From the looks of Wilby Days, probably not, and if Buddy was the one on the road Duck figured he might be able to get away with it anyway.

 

*

 

After five hours measuring out the rec center inside and out to see if they wanted him to do the walls, a whole _five hours_ because the director's assistant insisted on helping, Duck had definitely earned himself a little down time over lunch instead of heading straight back over to the Travers place.

"You looked like you had a good time last night," said Sandra, refilling Duck's cup of coffee when he drained the first in short order. There was a pointed cough from a distant corner of the café that they both ignored.

"So did you," said Duck. "Up until the mustard incident, anyway. I'm not sure what happened after that."

"After _that_ ," said Sandra, "Emily disappeared with Mackenzie and Buddy used some kind of secret police handshake to get me a package of unopened napkins. That shirt is never going to be the same."

"I didn't see Buddy," said Duck, blowing on his black coffee. "I wasn't sure if he was there."

"Miss Carol's baby?" said Sandra. "Fat chance of that. I didn't see him for long before he had to go give a speech or assemble a table or something."

Duck hadn't forgotten that Wilby Days was Carol's pet project, but he'd actually managed to put it out of his mind long enough to enjoy the night. The night at the festival, anyway. The night after they got home, well, Carol French was the _last_ thing on his mind.

"Should've said you were flying solo," said Duck. "Could've hung out with you a little."

"Liar," said Sandra. "Last thing you wanted to do was spend the night with a lonely woman. You had much, much better things to do than that."

Duck grinned at her, and the pointed cough got a little louder. They both ignored it. "Coulda still made time for you," he said. "Always have before. That hasn't changed."

"No, but a lot of things have, haven't they?"

"Yeah, some things," said Duck, the smile clinging to his lips. "Some good stuff, some bad stuff."

"Well, I know about the bad stuff, I want to hear about the good stuff," said Sandra, giving him a nudge. "Why don't you and Dan come to dinner some time?"

This time when the cough came, Duck looked back over his shoulder at the offender. "You need a lozenge over there, Gloria?" he said.

When she sniffed and turned her attention back to her newspaper, Duck turned back to see Sandra barely supressing a laugh. Duck was pretty surprised at himself, too. Maybe he shouldn't have been. Maybe there were pieces of his long-ago self, loud and unashamed pieces, that wouldn't do too badly in this Wilby.

"I eat in here most days but you still think you need to cook me dinner?" he went on like they hadn't been interrupted.

"Well, you can show up early and do the cooking then," she said. 

"Maybe if you fire up the barbecue," said Duck. "Maybe if you guys wanted to do that."

"Men and their need to set things on fire," she said, and Duck just smiled, even when the elderly couple in the corner—the Moreaus, they'd come to Wilby to retire—interrupted abruptly to ask for the bill.

"Give me a call," said Duck. "We'll do something before Emily goes back to school."

"That's not for a couple more weeks," she said over her shoulder.

"You know how long it takes us to make plans," he said, then finished off his coffee and left a pile of change for her on the counter to cover it before heading out to his truck. "See ya, Sandra."

"Yeah, see ya, Duck," said Sandra, and one thing about Sandra, she never did give a fuck what people thought of her friends. Not in high school, and not now.

 

* 

 

The sun was setting and Duck needed to be getting home soon, but Dan was at an appointment and Duck was done his work for the day and sitting out in Buddy French's yard for a little while seemed like the thing to do.

Buddy offered him a beer but Duck just shook his head. 

"Too early?" said Buddy, cracking one open and draining about a third of it.

"I don't drink," said Duck. He wasn't all that surprised Buddy hadn't really noticed that. Honestly, he wasn't sure how many people had. Unlike in Toronto, in Wilby drinking had been a pretty private thing for Duck. He never made a scene, he never called attention to himself, he just drank.

"You used to."

"I used to drink quite a bit."

"Ah," said Buddy, and that was all Duck needed to say to make it all clear to him. He looked at his own beer then set it aside, even though it didn't matter much to Duck whether he drank or not. Duck's choice, like his drinking in the first place, had been a private thing for private reasons.

"You spent five years off-island," said Buddy after a moment, and Duck wasn't sure if he was changing the subject or not, "but no one ever really knew what you did."

"Probably because I never talked about it," said Duck, "and no one ever really asked."

"I thought you were in Halifax, until someone told me you'd gone west to Toronto. Never figured on that."

"I was trying something new," said Duck. "It didn't work out for me."

"Must've worked out a little," said Buddy. From the outside it probably looked that way, but Duck knew his own life better than that. "I guess everyone comes back to Wilby in the end."

"Showed me what I didn't want more than it showed me what I did," said Duck. "I guess there was that at least. Wilby's my home."

"Even when it doesn't treat you like family?"

"Oh it treats me like family," said Duck with a rueful chuckle. "Maybe like that weird uncle you don't ever talk about but you're still obligated to invite to family gatherings."

"Is it as bad as all that?"

"It wasn't," said Duck. "Maybe it will be now, I don't know." The bad part before was that they didn't _know_ they were treating Duck badly. Now that they did, he wasn't sure if it was getting better or if it was getting worse.

"Why didn't you ever tell me you were gay?" asked Buddy finally, a question weeks in the building.

Duck looked down and his smile was a little sad. "We weren't that kind of friends."

"And are we now?"

"I don't know," said Duck. "Maybe we could be. Guess a lot of that depends on you, Buddy. Would you have really wanted to know? Last year? Ten years ago? How about back in high school?"

Buddy had to think about that, but Duck didn't think that was a bad sign. Buddy always did think more than other people. He didn't want to answer until he knew what he was saying.

"Wilby's full of all kinds of people," he said finally. "A lot of times I felt like I didn't quite fit in either. The old crowd's conservative."

"We're part of the old crowd," said Duck. "We're both third generation islanders. This is our place, too."

"Maybe we're both finally starting to prove that," said Buddy, fishing out his cigarettes. "Yeah," he added after another moment. "Yeah, I would've wanted to know. Might've given me some new perspective on a few things."

"Lately, seemed like you were one of the only ones around with any perspective at all," said Duck. He sounded the same but inside there was a sort of relief at hearing something he didn't realise he was waiting for, and didn't realise mattered to him so much.

"Yeah, well, this is my home," said Buddy, "and I was pretty clear on who was _actually_ bent on ruining it and who wasn't. I knew we had some...I knew there were gay people in Wilby. Wasn't any of my business."

"Until some kind of vigilante ambush made it your business."

"They decided it needed to be all of our business," said Buddy, and after a moment of thought he took another swig of his beer. "Some people have too much time on their hands."

Duck wished he could dismiss it all so easily. Dan wasn't the only one hurt by the mess, and Duck wasn't the only one outed against his will, though he might be the only one to stick it out in Wilby in the end. The Watch hadn't been for kids anymore anyway, just for people like him and people like Dan, who didn't feel like they had any other way.

Maybe there was a teenager in Wilby High right now who was watching Duck and realising that maybe his life could be exactly what he wanted it to be.

"I don't know what I would've said anyway," said Duck.

"Could've stopped me from trying to push Melanie Owen on you last year," said Buddy. "Would've worked."

"Almost did," admitted Duck, "till her mainlander boyfriend showed up at the party and took care of things."

Buddy whistled. "And wasn't that a whole other mess to clean up," he said. "Babysitting some drunk mainlander in lockup isn't my favourite way to spend the night."

"Maybe Melanie would've preferred a gay boyfriend for a while," said Duck, and Buddy let out a surprised laugh.

"Would've saved me a whole lot of trouble," said Buddy. "You sure you're sold on this Dan thing?"

"Pretty sold," said Duck, and reclined and enjoyed the sunset while it lasted.

 

*

 

Duck'd been waiting for this, he'd been waiting for this _exactly_. He'd flown under the radar in Wilby since moving back, and he'd _definitely_ flown under the radar before he'd left in the first place, but out in Toronto Duck'd been obnoxiously open about his sexuality more than once.

So when he heard "Faggots!" hurled at them across the street, when they were doing nothing but walking side by side, he didn't do anything more than tense for a moment before moving on. When he moved on, though, Dan wasn't moving with him.

"Hey," he said, without reaching out to touch him, worried it would make things worse. "Just ignore them."

"And how long do I keep ignoring them?"

"As long as it takes," said Duck. He wished he had a better answer, an antidote, but the truth was just that you had to ignore them as long as you had to ignore them.

He hadn't always ignored them in Toronto. Sometimes he went and beat the shit out of them. But this wasn't Toronto, this was Wilby, and he wasn't that man anymore.

"Forever," said Dan.

"Come on," said Duck. "We're just a couple blocks from home."

"Should've driven," said Dan. "Your house is too damn far from the grocery store."

"Usually I like it that way," said Duck. You took your privacy where you could get it. The trees in his yard weren't overgrown by accident.

Dan starting moving again, then. The truckload of idiots was long gone, and even though nothing saying there wouldn't be more, Duck figured their luck would hold.

He just wished it wasn't just luck.

 

*

 

"Carol paints, you know," said Buddy conversationally, over a plate of experimental nachos at Iggy's, courtesy of Emily. "They two of you might have been friends, once."

Duck just shook his head. "Time's long past," he said. "I can't, Buddy. Not now."

"Yeah," said Buddy, like he'd been expecting that answer all along. "Sometimes I think I can't either."

 

*

 

"I should get you to paint me some time," said Sandra, finger slipping around the rim of her wine glass as Duck showed her some of the things he'd been working on since he'd dug all his old stuff up, since he'd started something new. "Reclining, in the nude."

"Well, I guess if there's anyone you'd trust to do that...."

Sandra laughed and sipped her wine and let her blouse slip off one shoulder playfully. "You're still good. You were always good."

"You always told me I was good," said Duck. "I didn't always believe you."

"I was right, though, wasn't I?" said Sandra. "I can't even draw a stick figure, but I know good art when I see it. Did I ever tell you that I dated an art dealer in Vancouver."

"Dated?"

"I date!" said Sandra. "No matter what Emily might think of me sometimes. Good Lord, that girl."

"She's a good kid," said Duck, resting the canvas against the wall and pulling out another. "She really is."

"Even good kids are a handful," said Sandra, "but I don't know what I'd do without her. So many times she was all I had."

"She turned out real good, Sandra," said Duck. "You did really good with her. All kids have a lot to learn. God knows we did."

"We were so fucking young," said Sandra. "We thought we knew what we were doing when we left, but we had no idea."

"No fucking idea at all," agreed Duck. "If we'd known, do you think we would have left?"

"I sure as hell hope so," said Sandra. "Nothing wrong with coming home again, but never seeing what else is out there? Now _that_ would have been a mistake."

And for all the mistakes that they'd made, Duck had to agree.

"Maybe not nude," he said after a moment. "I was never big on nudes. But sure, I can draw you again. You can hang it next to one of the ones I did of you in high school."

"And see just how old I've gotten?" said Sandra. "God no, forget I said anything, you can just paint me from memory."

"Nah," said Duck. "I like the you that you are now."

"Why are all the good ones married or gay?" said Sandra with a resigned sigh.

Duck just laughed.

 

*

 

"I think we're going to work it out," said Buddy one night at the Loyalist. Duck just looked at him and wondered if he was supposed to say something. "I know you probably don't want to hear about that, but I just wanted to say. I think we're going to make it."

"Well, good for you," said Duck. "I know you work hard."

"You don't have to ever forgive her," said Buddy, "but I do. I have to try."

"Do you know what you're forgiving her for?"

"A lot of things," said Buddy. "I'm just taking it one thing at a time, and hoping she's forgiving me along the way too. I've done things I'm not proud of, you know?"

Duck knew. He could even name her. Or maybe what he didn't know was that there was more than one her. Wilby island was small, but Buddy hit the mainland pretty regularly.

"Well, haven't we all," he said, though. "I've got entire years I'm not proud of."

"Hard to believe that," said Buddy, leaning back and looking him over. "Oh, I'm not doubting you. It's just hard to believe."

"You mean you can't picture me snorting coke in a bathroom stall with some guy wearing a collar and leash?"

Buddy almost choked on his beer. "You're kidding right?"

Duck just shrugged and looked out the window for minute. "I'd say it was another life," he said, "but that makes it seem like I'm trying to deny it was me. It was all me. It's just been a lot of years since then."

"And I thought _I_ went wild in college," said Buddy.

"Yeah, I skipped the whole college part and just went wild," said Duck. "All those years if keeping everything inside in high school, when I finally got out of this place it all came out at once. The world was so big."

"Too big?"

"Maybe," said Duck. "I don't know. I should regret it all, but I don't. Some things. Not all of it. If it wasn't for those few years, mistakes and all, I wouldn't be here. And here isn't such a bad place to be."

"Could be worse," agreed Buddy. "We all make mistakes. The trick is to be better when you move on."

"I think I might finally be getting the hang of that," said Duck.

He couldn't forgive Carol, but then he'd never been in love with her. He'd never made promises to her and built a life with her. If she and Buddy could work it out, then Duck was genuinely glad for Buddy that he had something he wanted that much in his life. But he thought, privately, that he would be more genuinely glad if Buddy realised that maybe there wasn't much left to salvage, and did the moving on he was talking about.

It wasn't his business, though. He didn't know the ins and outs of Buddy's life any more than Buddy knew his. But they were starting to get to know more, now, and it was nice to have a friend.

"I hope we're all finally getting the hang of that," said Buddy after a moment. "I feel like I've been learning it for a very long time."

 

*

 

Duck didn't even know what brought him out here. He hadn't been in weeks, since right after everything had gone down. But Dan was out of town again and Duck was at loose ends and somehow a drive around town brought him to the Watch, not down onto the rocks but up on the lookout, like he was seeing it all for the first time.

He wasn't surprised he didn't stay alone very long; if there was one tourist spot on Wilby Island, this was it. He was only surprised it was Buddy, who was no more tourist than Duck himself was.

"Dan out on the mainland again?"

"His lawyer's over there," said Duck, leaning forward onto the railing. "They've got, you know, stuff to work out. He's taking a couple days."

"I'm sure he's got a lot to do," said Buddy, suddenly appearing next to him and looking out at the trees, the rocks, the rippling water. "Every time I start to forget why it's worth it, all I have to do is come out here and I remember."

"I haven't been any other place quite like this," agreed Duck. "I don't know if it's really that special, but..."

"It's home," finished Buddy.

"Yeah, it's home," said Duck. "And no other place has ever been home."

"For all its faults."

"And God knows it has them," said Duck. "It's a good place with good people, and most days I can't really imagine being anywhere else. Not for long anyway."

"Remember when we were in school," said Buddy, "and we used to come out here. Make forts out in the woods and skip rocks in the ocean?"

"I was always the best rock skipper," said Duck. "I beat you when we were seven, and to get me back you and your friends built a tree fort that I couldn't get up into."

"Looks like you had the last laugh on that one," said Buddy. "Now you can not only reach the tree fort, I bet you can build 'em better than anyone."

"Damn straight I can."

"But can you still beat me at skipping stones?"

Duck pushed himself up and away from the railing. "Is that a challenge?" he said. "Because we can go find out right now."

"Just be careful on the walk down," said Buddy. "Don't want either of us breaking a hip or something."

Duck laughed and found the old path down, the one that all the local kids knew and nobody else ever used. "Speak for yourself," he said. "I'm a young man again."

"You're going to break your neck," said Buddy. "Slow down."

"Make me," said Duck, skidding down over the rocks and protruding tree roots until he was on the shore and hopping from rock to rock.

"Now I _really_ feel like we're kids again," said Buddy, and despite any protests to the contrary, he was still sure-footed enough to catch up before long. "I figured by this age I'd have kids of my own."

"Yeah?" said Duck. "Do you still...?"

"Nah," said Buddy. "Time's passed, I think. Even if Carol wanted to now, or could..." Duck waited, unwilling to finish that one himself; his biases ran too deep. "I'm not sure it's a good situation to bring a kid into." Duck just nodded. "What about you?"

"Me?" he said. "Nah. I'd've been no good, and now I'm too settled in my ways."

"You sure about that?" said Buddy. "Seems to me you're not so settled you can't make room for someone else."

"Sleeping with Dan isn't the same as adopting a kid," said Duck. "I always had other plans anyway. And there was the drinking and...everything else. Maybe I'm too selfish."

"That's maybe the last thing I'd call you," said Buddy, but he shrugged and stepped out onto the last rock before the waves lapped up to hit his shoes. "Well, go on, then." 

Duck shook off whatever odd feelings had been creeping up, talking frankly to Buddy like he had been, and grinned and picked up a flat stone to fling out at the water, to see how far it could go.

 

*

 

Dan was sleeping and Duck didn't want to wake him, so he sat down on a kitchen chair and took his sketchbook out and watched him sleep. Sleep peacefully, in a way Duck wasn't sure he did very often, or maybe he was only peaceful when he slept.

He hadn't drawn Dan before, not from life anyway. For a long time he hadn't looked like himself, and had been surrounded by surgical steel and too-crisp linens and antipathy. Then after that, he'd never found the right moment.

He drew other things too, a few flowers in a vase, the view from the window, the corner of the bed where it made interesting wrinkles and angles, but mostly he drew Dan. He was still rusty, his hand not quite doing everything he wanted it to do, but you didn't forget how to look at the world like an artist no matter how much time had passed. 

In a way, he'd never stopped. Maybe that was what made his life both harder and easier. He saw the potential in everything, but he also saw everything that could have been, but wasn't.

Dan shifted in his sleep and Duck paused to watch, looking at him in his own bed with the morning light filtering in from the window and thinking about the times he'd imagined exactly this. Maybe later they'd go down to the Watch together. Maybe they could make some new memories there.

It was a very nice thought.

 

*

 

"You ever think about moving back to the mainland."

Duck had been waiting a long time for this conversation. Maybe he wasn't expecting it in the aftermath of a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, but he knew it was out there on the horizon somewhere, waiting for the right moment.

"Not really," he said. "Not anymore. The mainland's not for me."

"It'd be easier for us there," said Dan, going through a box of DVDs from his store and not quite meeting Duck's eyes. "A lot of things would be easier."

"Maybe," said Duck, watching him carefully, watching for that restless flicker of the eyes, for knuckles to go white with repressed tension. "Maybe not."

"Wilby's so small, so isolated."

"It's home, Dan," he said, and he knew that there was both defiance and weariness in his voice. He knew the argument that Dan was going to make, and what was more, he knew he was right. For him. "My life is here."

"You could do what you do anywhere," said Dan. "You don't have a boss. You don't have ties."

"I have a lot of work lined up," he said. "Maybe I could do what I do anywhere, but I do well here. I'm the go-to guy when people want to get things done."

"The same people who shout things at you on the street?"

"Sometimes," admitted Duck. Or if not those same people, then their parents, or their kids, or their cousins, because Wilby wasn't just a small town, it was a pretty closed community, too. "But a lot of people don't do that."

There wasn't any place in the world that was the kind of utopia where they were never going to face anyone disapproving of who they were, and who they were to one another, not yet, but he did know that there were easier places than Wilby. And he knew that Dan knew that too.

"Duck, I want to go," he said finally, and then let out a rush of breath like those words had been a physical ordeal.

"I know," said Duck. "I always knew."

"You could come with me."

"No, I couldn't," said Duck regretfully. "I'm an islander, Dan. This is my home. I chose it a long time ago. Maybe you could stay." 

He said it knowing what the answer would be, because he had to ask. He said it knowing that at least one of Dan's trips to the mainland had probably been house hunting, or job hunting, or both. He said it knowing that his heart was going to be a little bit broken for the first time in a long time, because despite knowing where this was going, he'd chosen not to put the walls up. Because just because he'd been sure this day was coming, didn't mean he hadn't hoped to be wrong.

"I don't know if I can do that," said Dan. "I really don't know if I can do that anymore. But...I can try."

"We can try," he agreed, and put an arm around Dan's shoulders and let a tiny spark of hope live on that maybe Dan meant it, and maybe it would work.

 

*

 

"Not a lot of people know, you know," said Buddy, blowing lightly on his steaming coffee before sitting down across the table from Duck.

Duck just looked at him. "Course they do," he said. "I see how they look at us. We haven't been pretending anything else."

"Yeah, maybe," said Buddy, "but they don't _know_. They're only speculating."

"He's not exactly living on my spare room."

"You don't have a spare room."

"You'd think people would know _that_." People had certainly made it a point to know the rest of his business, right down to what he ate for lunch. "It doesn't matter anyway."

"No?"

"They can think what they want to think about me," said Duck, instead of going into all the other reasons why it wasn't going to matter much soon. "They always have and they always will. If they know, they know, and if they don't know, well, they haven't been paying attention. I'm not hiding anymore."

"I wasn't sure," said Buddy. "You don't really go out of your way to talk about it."

"No more or less than anybody else," said Duck.

"And Dan?"

Duck shrugged, and pretended he wasn't glancing over at the ferry schedule on the wall, as if he didn't already know it by heart. He didn't have any right to speak for Dan, and he couldn't find the words anyway. Because how did he even start to say 'I was right, I wasn't enough.'

"I think you're good for him," said Buddy. 

"Yeah, well," said Duck, and chuckled and tried to brush it off. "Dan's got some tough choices to make. Don't want to complicate them by taking him out on the town in front of God and everyone."

"His choice, or yours?"

"Buddy."

"Sorry," he said. "Sorry. That's none of my...listen, I just came over because I wanted to tell you that Carol's in Montreal for the week, flew out yesterday. Some kind of work thing, she told me but it all just went over my head. Anyway, if you wanted to come by for dinner or whatever, she won't be around. We've got a lot of stories we've been promising to tell each other, but there never seems to be enough time."

"Yeah, maybe," said Duck. "I'll have to see."

"Open invitation," Buddy told him before getting up again. "Just letting you know. I know you've got your hands full with...well, with whatever you've got going on."

"Yeah, I kind of do," said Duck, "but thank you. Maybe I'll be seeing you."

"I hope you do," he said, and turned to wink at Sandra and then headed back out onto patrol again.

 

*

 

Duck decided to do his errands on foot, leaving his truck parked in the driveway, windows down and airing out the chemical smells on what was turning out to be a beautiful afternoon despite rain in the forecast. There was a smear of paint in the crease between his thumb and index finger that he somehow missed when he was washing up, and he picked at it as he walked.

"Mornin'," said Alison Cartier, over the sound of her lawnmower, waving at him before resting her forearms against the handle and looking wearily at the half the lawn she had left to do. Duck waved back and gave her a sympathetic smile as he passed by. If Duck knew her kids, and unfortunately he did, they were likely laying on the living room floor playing video games while their mother did the yard work.

His first stop was the hardware store where he meant to layaway a bunch of lumber for a new gazebo project, but Grant let him know that he had a new supply coming in next week that was going to be better quality than anything he had in the storehouse right now, and said he'd rather give it to Duck than to Hank Toews who'd come in earlier and would no doubt butcher the stuff trying to make another treehouse that would fall down in a few months. Hank could have the warped stock.

He picked up a new set of allen keys while he was there anyway, since Grant had them on special and he'd lost half his set again, and promised Grant he'd be back in a week.

Duck just needed a couple of things at the grocery store too, no sense going to a big box store for them when Mctavish's corner store would do just fine. They always had better bread anyway, and if he was going to go out on the water with Buddy again this weekend he was going to need some more sandwiches.

Iggy's was his last stop, dropping his plastic shopping bag on the seat across from himself and sitting by the window. It was that time of morning when the coffee crowd had already moved on but the lunchers hadn't come in yet; he caught Sandra reading a Harlequin when he came in, which she quickly hid behind the counter before bringing him a cup of coffee.

"You just missed Emily," she said. "She wanted to see if you could show her how to fix her bike."

"You tell her I'll tune it up for her any time, unless it needs parts."

"It's just the brakes," said Sandra. "She wants to learn how to do it herself."

"Anderson women always did like to be independent," he said. He hoped she knew that was a compliment.

"Well, at least I know she comes by it honestly," said Sandra with a sigh as Duck took a sip of the coffee. Still piping hot, maybe even a fresh pot.

"Tell her I'll come by tomorrow," he said. "Or call me if she's busy."

"Will do," said Sandra. "And in the meantime, I think you've got company." She melted away back to the counter, but Duck didn't know what she was talking about till he spotted a furtive teenage boy approaching him from the shadows by the restroom.

It took him a second but Duck realised he knew him, it was Gemma Cassidy's oldest, Steven, and Jesus he had to be, what, seventeen already? Hard to believe how the years went by.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," said Duck warily, sipping his coffee and trying to be ready for anything.

Steve looked back over his shoulder before going on. "So say I was going over to the mainland to...meet people," he said. "Is there a place I should go?"

"Meet people?" said Duck, and then he got it. _Meet boys_. Steven was trying to ask him how to meet boys. Duck felt strangely unqualified to answer, and equally responsible to try. He thought about it for a second, then ripped a piece of paper from his notebook, wrote down the address of a club and a phone number. 

"I'm not your parent, so I'm not going to tell you not to drink, but be smart," he said as he passed it over. Duck might not have gone out much anymore, but he knew what was what. The club wouldn't ask for ID unless he called attention to himself; it was where most of the young people went. "The phone number's for a friend of mine. If you get in trouble, or just need a place to stay, give him a call and tell him I sent you."

Steven's look of gratitude and relief was fleeting but heartfelt. He snatched up the piece of paper and tucked it away and looked over his shoulder one last time. "Thanks," he said, and flashed him a smile before retreating as fast as he'd come.

Duck reminded himself to give Jeff a call later to give him a heads up. They hadn't talked in ages, maybe a year or more; it'd be good to catch up. 

"You're a good person," said Sandra as she refilled his mug. 

"Try to be," said Duck, holding it in his hand but not drinking it for a moment, just letting the warmth of it seep into his hand. "For what it's worth."

"Well, it's worth a whole lot to some of us," said Sandra. "I don't think I ever told you how good it was to see your face again, when Emily and I moved back. Made it feel more like home."

And even with the rough patches, on the balance it was a good one.

 

*

 

Sandra was about to close up that night when Duck pushed through the door of Iggy's again, the counter already cleaned up, the last of the customers already gone off into the night. Duck pushed the rainwater from his hair and looked a little sheepish, but he didn't go.

"Just let me flip the sign," Sandra said after just looking at him for a moment, and locked the door behind him. "Sit down. I've still got a couple of cups in the pot."

"Those are the best ones," said Duck. "The strongest."

"As long as they get you talking," said Sandra, and pulled the blinds before setting two cups of coffee on the table between them, thick and black and steaming. "What's wrong?"

Duck shook his head. "Just needed to get out for a little while."

"Ah," said Sandra knowingly. "Your first big fight."

"Something like that," said Duck. He wasn't sure he'd call it a fight, just an inevitable conversation, but there were definitely some things said that shouldn't have been said, on both sides.

"Well, I'm not really qualified to give advice," said Sandra, "but try not to go to bed angry. That's what they always say."

"These 'they' people say a lot of things," said Duck, and shook his head. "It's not like that. Don't worry about it. I just needed to see a friendly face for a little while."

"And here I am, the friendliest," said Sandra. "You sure you don't want any cream or sugar for that? It's been in the pot a while."

"It's perfect the way it is," said Duck. Good and strong, like a slap in the face. "Good for clearing my head."

"Don't know what you need to do that for," said Sandra. "You've got just about the clearest head of anybody I ever knew."

"Not always," said Duck, but she wasn't wrong that his head was pretty clear right about now. What he needed, really, was just some fresh air and a bit of space. And, like he said, a friendly face. "You ever think you're going to be alone forever?"

"You're asking _me_ this?" said Sandra, and laughed right in his face. "I think that all the time. But I keep trying anyway."

"We all just want to be loved," said Duck, and sipped his coffee, letting it sting his lips. "We all want that."

"It's just a fight," said Sandra, putting her hand over his to reassure him. "It'll be fine. Hell, even if it's _not_ just a fight, it'll be fine. You'll be fine. I'll be fine. We'll all be just fine. Because it's a big old world out there and we all get to be happy in the end."

"Do we?"

"We do," she said. "It just takes a few tries sometimes. Or in some cases, a whole lot of tries."

"I don't have a whole lot of experience at this whole dating thing," admitted Duck.

"Yeah, I guess not," said Sandra, and squeezed his hand and then withdrew hers again to sip her own coffee. "I guess you wouldn't."

"It's trickier than it looks," said Duck.

"Oh, you have no idea," said Sandra. "You have _no_ idea. But it's pretty amazing too. Being together, falling in love, discovering things together. Even falling out of love's not so bad when you look back on it. I've fucked a whole lot of things up in my life, but I've had some amazing times too."

"Because you put yourself out there," said Duck. "Because you tried."

"Every time," said Sandra. "But then, when haven't I done that? I did it with you. Sometimes it's just about...opening yourself up to the possibilities. Even when it's not about falling it in love."

"In another life," said Duck.

"In another life," said Sandra, and sighed softly. "I have a bad habit of jumping right into the deep end. But that's okay too, once you know how to swim."

"I'm a pretty strong swimmer," said Duck, sipping his coffee thoughtfully.

"Then jump," said Sandra, and maybe she didn't know what she was saying to him, but Duck understood it just fine.

 

*

 

Duck stood on the dock and watched the ferry leave, but Dan never came out on deck to wave goodbye. Duck wasn't sure if he would've either, if he'd been the one to go. When he was eighteen and leaving Wilby for the first time Sandra had seen him off, and he hadn't waved goodbye to her either. But then Sandra had followed three weeks later, and they'd both come back in the end.

Duck didn't think Dan was ever coming back.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he waited until he couldn't make out the shapes of people anymore, then turned and got back into his truck and headed back into town. There was leftover spaghetti sauce in the fridge; maybe he could heat that up and eat it on toast, in front of the television. 

Idly, he wondered if Buddy's invitation to supper and conversation was still open.

Turning right instead of left at the corner, he decided to find out.


End file.
